Desperate Characters by Paula FoxMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
A small, amazing novel about a married couple living in a slowly gentrifying Brooklyn circa 1970, as they deal with a number of small (yet crucial) crises over the span of just a few days.
Like another favorite small novel of mine -- Ian McEwan's "On Chesil Beach" -- this is a tightly constructed, careful study which is impossibly rich and perfectly textured. The Bentwoods' marriage and their unsettling experiences over a few days hits on pretty much everything: race, class, gender, society, money, work, ethics...you name it. Like a small painting of a VAST landscape. I don't really read much poetry, but it has a rate of amazing images, phrases, and observations that I can only imagine is replicated in a quality poem. It's gorgeous, silky writing from beginning to end.
All the '70s period details basically make this a historical novel at this point, yet ALL the themes and preoccupations and tensions and fears still resonate perfectly. They might even resonate more than ever, as they make us look around and realize that the more things change...
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